There is no greater vocation than to serve. But there is no greater purpose than to love. Live a life that does both, and you’ll be truly happy. - John McCain

We can be slow as well to give greatness its due, a mistake I made myself long ago when I voted against a federal holiday in memory of Dr. King. I was wrong. I was wrong. And eventually realized that, in time to give full support for a state holiday in Arizona. I'd remind you we can all be a little late sometimes in doing the right thing, and Dr. King understood this about his fellow Americans

The NDAA incorporates many of the best practices and recent innovations of high-performing private sector health care providers. For example, the NDAA creates specialized care centers of excellence at major medical centers based on the specialized care delivery model in high-performing health systems like the Cleveland Clinic. The legislation also expands the use of telehealth services and incentivizes participation in disease management programs. Finally, the NDAA expands and improves access to care by requiring a standardized appointment system in military treatment facilities and creating more options for patients to get health care in the private sector. Taken together, these reforms, along with many others in the bill, will improve access to and quality of care for servicemembers and their families and retirees and their families, and they will improve the military and combat medical readiness of our force and reduce rising health care costs for the Department of Defense. This entails some difficult decisions. The NDAA makes significant changes to the services' medical command structures and right-sizes the costly military health system infrastructure, and, yes, the NDAA asks some beneficiaries to pay a little more for a better health system.

Today’s press conference in Helsinki was one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory. The damage inflicted by President Trump’s naiveté, egotism, false equivalence, and sympathy for autocrats is difficult to calculate. … President Trump proved not only unable, but unwilling to stand up to Putin. He and Putin seemed to be speaking from the same script as the president made a conscious choice to defend a tyrant against the fair questions of a free press, and to grant Putin an uncontested platform to spew propaganda and lies to the world. … No prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant. Not only did President Trump fail to speak the truth about an adversary; but speaking for America to the world, our president failed to defend all that makes us who we are — a republic of free people dedicated to the cause of liberty at home and abroad. American presidents must be the champions of that cause if it is to succeed. Americans are waiting and hoping for President Trump to embrace that sacred responsibility. One can only hope they are not waiting totally in vain.